Cuba During the Castro’s Illness Crisis: Perception in Spain and the European Union.

By mid-2006, for the first time in almost half a century, all actors and observers of the Cuban drama that has attracted the attention of a wide spectrum of the world’s public opinion were in agreement. All breathed a sort of a mix of expectation, calm, anguish, and hope in front of the moderately imminent biological (as the term is customarily used in Cuba) ending of at least the current political leadership. What was not actually expected was that the vigil was going to end so suddenly and not exactly for the terminal reason (the death of Castro) that most feared or hoped for. What it was less clear then and it is less clear now, of course, is the doubt consisting in deciphering if this chapter of the recent history of Cuba will also represent a drastic change of regime. In other words, this paper argues, the ultimate questions was not only ‘and now, what?’ What was demanded was to know if all the uncertainty created by Castro’s illness was going to end in a succession or a transition. In this context, each sector, actor and observer has performed according to individual or group needs and desires. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]